Sheyba was originally a joint project formed by Danish trance pioneers Orion (Jean Borelli) and Elysium (Kristian Thinning). Trance Africa Express was originally released on First Flight, a massive early success for the legendary UK imprint Flying Rhino Records. All around the world it became one of the most played tracks in 1996/1997 with several top chart placements on national radio stations, music magazines, and DJ top tens. Sheyba launched a remix contest in February 2010 that was later won by Disco Hooligans from Greece, an act already known for two stellar albums released on Ektoplazm. Regrettably, the release was delayed for some time, but it is finally here. Enjoy the great energetic remix by Disco Hooligans alongside a deep tribal remix from Elysium. Mastering by Nectarios Hooligan at Martian Masters.

Ah, excellent – the song that won the remix contest, which everyone shat on because it completely destroyed the original (and shat on to the point of FB posts being deleted in RAEG!!!11), all because Sheyba never said “hey, don’t produce actually *good* music – just do your regular unimaginative psytrance crap that all sounds the same and utterly butcher what used to be a legendary song”. And if I recall correctly, Sheyba were also absolute dicks and had forbidden the remixes from being released.

At least the DH remix has _some_ elements of the original, but Elysium’s remix doesn’t. Not even one. Calling it “back to the roots” makes me laugh.

Everyone is welcome to their own opinion of course… but it is ultimately up to the rights owner in a remix contest to decide under what terms the remixes can be released. Let’s not make this about old fights please :)

Its an honour to be involved in remixing a classic we loved so much when we were young(er) ;)
I remember stomping the clubs and outdoor parties of 1996 when the original mix was dropped.
In regards to utterly butchering the original. We feel that the originals should be left untouched, i.e. not copying the arrangement and replacing the kick, bassline and adding some FX on top. The originals are great in their own right…so we say don’t touch them and do something different.
This is the approach we use nowdays when we remix classics from Etnica, Deedrah and Bamboo Forest.
It is also why we think Elysium did a brilliant job at remixing it, he did something different wrapped in a brilliant tribal flavour.
Some old school die hard Goa fans will complain no matter what and that is fair enough really.
We make music that we like, not music that we want/hope other people to like.
There was only the original bassline midi file and the animal samples available for this remix, and it was more than enough for us.
That is all one needs to make a remix that nods to the original and twist it enough to make something different.

I think the “problem” with that remix contest had more to do with some people doing their best to relive the original goa anthem and then Sheyba eventually saying they didn’t want any of that. I don’t recall the details (can someone fill me in?), although I do remember that eventually those new-goa remixes had to be discarded or something. Like, don’t use the samples or don’t call it “Trance Africa Express Remix”.

In any case – who cares. It’s their song, they have the right to decide what to do with it.

No that is not what happened. We (Sheyba) never dictated what genre the remixes should be in. The reason why we did not choose any of the “new-goa” remixes is very simple. The musical quality was not good enough in our opinion. At first we wanted to choose two winners but because of so few send us remixes (They had 3 months to make a remix) and because there was none (beside Hooligans) we thought was good enough quality we decided to only chose one winner. That’s what caused the “uprising” and some of the “new-school” artists to unjust and IMO not very nice to accuse us of lying to them and even attacking Disco Hooligans for not being #”genuine” Goa.

But as you mentioned. At the end of the day it is our decision and also our name involved in the remixes. It is not our duty to release remixes we do not find to be good enough. If there had been a “New-Goa” remix is a quality we liked we would have released it too. But sadly there wasn’t any.

Anyway this is such an old discussion and we have mo0ved on so I hope it can be closed no.

Massive respect to both remixers, these two are among the best tracks to hit my speakers in a long time, and I can’t get over how cool both new takes on this classic are. If only every remix attempt at the old goa-classics were half as fresh as this :)